Every girl dreams of having a wonderful experience trying on their wedding gowns. My visit to Bridals by Roma in Clifton,NJ ended with me leaving the dressing room, and the showroom, in tears...and not in a good way. My "wonderful experience" is now ruined forever.
We get to the showroom and the owner/manager (?) comes to greet us. She starts asking all the standard questions (date, style, price range). I had come prepared with a list of designer model numbers that I had liked online. I knew they carried Allure Bridals so I showed her the list of numbers and she replied with "Oh, well those are the women's collection and we don't carry those." I should have known right then and there that this appointment would not work out for me. I figured, however, that they may have another designer's plus sized samples in there.
She then proceeds to tell me, my Matron of honor and my Maid of Honor to go look at dresses to see the style I like and that a consultant will meet me. We start looking through dresses and it's clear that they are all sizes 8, 10, 12. I think I saw maybe one dress that was an 18 and one that was a 20 but that was it. (and they were not styles I liked). We started looking at styles however and picking out a few we liked. The consultant comes to meet us and lets us continue looking around. We pull 6 dresses that we like (again, all not in my size at all) and go to the dressing room.
Here's where the humiliation starts...
She then starts holding dresses up to me! Fully clothed! I'm in jeans, a blue tshirt and ugg boots and I'm supposed to picture what I would look like in these dresses? Are you kidding? Both my girls were in the room with me and I could tell that they were confused/disappointed but were trying to stay positive for me. I said multiple times casually that it's so hard for me to really get an idea just holding up the dresses.
I was getting increasingly frustrated as this consultant was a bit persistent in showing me everything. Clearly I was not happy. She then passed a comment that most of the dresses were standard sample sizes and that she thinks we could "try" to get this one dress on me. I took one look at the opening and said "Yeah, that's not going to work, sweetheart". Suddenly, there's a knock at the door and another consultant comes in with....you guessed it...the two "bigger" dresses that I clearly said I did not like at all. The second consultant said that these better fit the "criteria". Clearly she dtidn't get the memo as to what my criteria was because those dresses were not it. I lost it at that point and immediately started crying in the fitting room. I thought I could recover quickly but I clearly couldn't. I just wanted to leave. So we put our coats on and walked out of the fitting room and the showroom. I was crying so hard that I couldn't breathe. I was completely mortified.
After crying for a bit...I became angry. These salespeople are rediculous. How could you in your right mind purchase a wedding dress without trying it on?? Did they think that just holding it up to me was going to seal the deal?
Bridals by Roma really needs to step up their game. Not all women are sizes 14 and under. Plus sized women have money to spend and clearly we can not spend it there.